


Amrâlu’amad

by TheIndianWinter



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: As told by the Mountain herself, Canon Compliant, Gen, The fall and rise of Erebor, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-08-07 04:54:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7701586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIndianWinter/pseuds/TheIndianWinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of all the children of the Lonely Mountain, there is none who have loved her like Thorin Oakenshield.<br/>He has lived for her, and died for her.<br/>It is time he lived for himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amrâlu’amad

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting around unfinished for a long time.  
> I can't for the life of me remember where the original idea came from, but due to the idea - a story told from the point of view of Erebor herself - the narrative style is a bit different from my usual.  
> Still, I came up with an ending for it, finally.  
> Unbeta'd but edited.  
> Hope you enjoy.

** _amrâlu'amad_ **

** _a mother's love_ **

 

** _mountain_ **

 

In the very beginning, she was alone.

For how long, she does not know, but it became her identity, miles as she was from any of her family. 

Lonely, they called her.

Then one of her brothers fell, far to the West, and his children, they came to her. She took them in, offered them her riches, held them close inside her. 

Eventually, she gave them her heart.

It wasn’t enough.

-

When Durin woke, it was in a mountain. 

The Dwarrows are the children of Aüle, indeed, but they are also the adopted kin of the mountains. The First-Born are the kin of the forest. They crave the warmth and the riches of the fertile earth. They do not want the mountains. 

Mountains are tall, beautiful but harsh. They tear through the lush canvas of the world and so are cast aside as cold and barren. 

The Dwarrows have a similarly incongruous place in the tapestry of the world, like rough twine that does not interweave so well with the other threads of cotton and silk. 

They come from stone, like the mountains. 

So the mountains become the home of the Dwarrows.

-

Her children are returned to her, after many years, burned and broken and in a smaller number than left her. 

She loves them all the same.

The King is too young to be burdened with his responsibility, but then she thinks her children are always too young for the hardships thrust upon them and for the darkness that claims them. 

Too short are their lives and each one scores ever deeper into the fissure at her core.

For many a year, all was well, and the Mountain gave to her children so that they would prosper, as did the Men that lived in her arms, in her shadow. 

Then another of her children died, the wife of the King, the Consort (not the Queen, for Azâlul’abad herself is Queen) and that was when it started, creeping at first, the disquiet of the mind from being close to a dragon’s spell. 

He should never have left, she thinks, but then remembers he was born not within her, but to the North. Still, her children should not have left her so bereft.

Too late, she realises the ring he wears is to blame, coiling its pretty, evil magic around his broken heart and the words are a siren call.

 

** _fire_ **

 

It came from the North, on wings that beat a hurricane. 

A mountain does not bow to the wind, no matter it’s fury. 

Then came the lashes of dark fire, flaying her skin and consuming the town that lay in her arms. 

Then it came for her, for her children. 

They abandoned her once more. 

And an intruder came to lie within her.

\- 

The flames her children lit within her die away and Azâlul’abad feels cold. 

Alone, once more.

An intruder lies within her belly, its greed and darkness seeping into her very stone from the wickedness that sits where it’s heart should lie. 

She is helpless to the poison and it makes her hate it all the more.

-

To pass the time, she recalls the times since passed, when her halls were filled with the song of her children, the words of Aüle that others call sharp but she considers beautiful simply for the way it echoes through her, like no other language could. 

Azâlul’abad is even what her children called her - the Lonely Mountain. 

Loneliness, it seems, is what she is destined for, it lies deep within her core. 

So she thinks, they should name her Azâlul’amad - the lonely mother - now she is bereft of her precious children. 

-

The beast settles into sleep in her breast, and she has none that will come and purge her of its cruel presence.

The tendrils of the drake’s spell curl first around the gold, then around her heart.

And the Mountain waits alone.

 

** _death_ **

 

Through the haze of the sickness that consumes her, she processes when she is breached once more. This time it is gentle, slowly creeping through her veins, warm and kind, far softer and smaller than the beast that scorched her. 

Then, she feels them, so few in number, but unmistakably hers. 

His hand ghosts across one of her inner walls.

“I’ve missed these walls,” he says, breathes onto her cold stone.

_I’ve missed you too, my child,_ she replies, but, as ever, her children do not hear her.

-

When she first welcomed them to her breast, the Mountain swore she would love all her children equally. This was impossible, she soon learned, when one’s children did not all return her affection with equal vigour. She still loved each of them dearly. 

Of all her children, there is none who has loved her quite like Thorin Oakenshield.

She first sees it in young eyes that regard her with awe, both at her raw beauty and the smooth lines her children have carved into her.

Then she sees it in fearful eyes, those of a boy and his home torn asunder, before they harden and he becomes a leader to his people, far, far too young, even for her Dwarrows.

Upon his return, she sees his heart is like her own, brilliant but hardened, dedicated to the children of Durin. 

She does not know love beyond that which she holds for her children, so she does not recognise it at first, the love Thorin Oakenshield holds for the small, soft creature with a strong, fierce heart. It is strange, for in many ways it is like her own - tender, but nigh unbreakable, like mithril.

The creature, a child of the gentle, rolling green of the West sees it as she does; too late.

-

Even she cannot stop the dragon’s poison as it twists its way into his mind. If only she could stop it, stop the madness that corrupts his gemstone heart, silence the cloying melody of the pale, enchanted gold, she could save him.

An army comes to sit between her arms, it threatens her children and she hates it, hates the Elf at its head that calls her children blind and cold. It is he who is blind to his own greed and cold to the fates of others. 

He has also sat alone for years, has seen precious ones ravaged by dragon-fire, but he does not understand. Or perhaps he will not. Perhaps he is afraid. 

Then _they_ come, they want to take her from her children, fill her with more evil, more hatred. 

This time, her children fight for her. 

A terrible battle is fought - and won - but not without cost.

Barely have they been reunited that Thorin is torn from her and the damaged little burglar that cradles the King in his arms.

-

He lived for her and died for her. It is time he lived for himself, she thinks. 

 

** _rebirth_ **

 

He is laid out to sleep, her warrior king, with his sword in his hand and her heart upon his breast. 

Her other children care not for their reunion now, only for their grief. She cannot fault them, for she feels it so very keenly. 

Darkness is replaced with melancholy. 

It is less twisted, yes, but she is more desperate now, faced as she is with her children’s hurt. They deserved a joyous homecoming, and all she could do is watch as their hopes, her own hopes were dashed aside in a maelstrom of knives and heartbreak. 

No more.

Let it not be said that the Mountain does not provide for her children. 

Indeed not. 

She offers shelter, she offers food, she offers them riches, she offers them all she can. 

Some things, she knows, she should not give, but she cannot help herself. 

Things like her heart. 

-

Thorin Oakenshield awakes in a tomb.

He does not realise it is a tomb at first, for he awakes as if from a slumber, but his body feels stiff, as if he has slept for a decade. Through the gloom, he cannot make out where exactly he is, but he knows the feeling of his home. He strains his mind, trying to recall events between his first steps into hallowed halls, and his present awakening. After a moment, he ceases, smiling to himself as he revels in the familiarity of the air, here beneath the earth. Azâlul’abad. 

His hand, he realises, clutches something.

No, not something, Orcrist. 

His position is unnatural, too poised for slumber. 

He has been laid in state.

He remembers it clearly then, not as before, where it shifted hazily like a dream as it is being forgotten. 

Madness.

War.

Death. 

He sits up and something falls into his lap.

He glances down. 

The glow is dimmer than before, but it is unmistakeable.

The Heart of the Mountain.

Cracked in two.

 

** _heart_ **

 

Her heart is in two, yet it has never felt more full. One piece sits back where it once did, on high above the head of the King. The other sits beside it, above the head of a hobbit. He is different from her children, but not in any way she can see that matters. His heart is brilliant and she takes him as her own kin.

Both will die. She knows this. 

But she does not fear it, will not fear it. 

It is a terrible thing, they say, for a mother to have to bury her child. 

She outlives each of hers.

As long as her children live happily, she finds she can watch as the kingdom rebuilds itself inside her, as generations are born, and die in turn. 

Darkness still comes, but it passes. 

Her heart remains broken in two, but the pieces shine brighter than ever as children are born to her that do not know of the reality of fear, of the great sorrows and hardships of their ancestors, only through tales and songs and the histories carved into her walls. They are proud, and bright and happy.

Hope fills the Lonely Mountain. 

And she is alone no more. 


End file.
